Balanced Brightness Levels: Exploring how lighting affects humans’ experiences of architectural and social urban contexts.

Abstract

This paper explores how lighting and darkness influence human experiences of architectural and social public urban contexts in dark hours. Tram stations in Aarhus, Denmark, are used as cases to investigate how brightness levels influence human sensory experience of the local space, the surroundings, co-presence with other people, and the activities performed in a specific context. Furthermore, this paper describes a transdisciplinary process, where methods from natural science, social science and arts/humanities are combined in three pre-analyses and a main field experiment. Lighting is often related to safety while darkness is related to fear. However, the findings from the main field experiment of this project indicate that lower and balanced brightness levels can sharpen our senses and create a relaxed atmosphere. Additionally, lower brightness levels enrich perceptions of and connections with spatial and social surroundings, thereby increasing perceived safety. We argue for context specific field experiments based on pre-analyses and the use of a transdisciplinary process, for drawing nearer to people’s immediate senses when exploring experiences of urban lighting. The ultimate goal of the studies is to inspire to solutions that exploit the architectural and social potential of lighting by lowering and balancing brightness levels, all while reducing energy use and light pollution.

Socially inclusive Lighting Design: exploring a method to enhance freedom of movement for marginalised groups.

“…The literature reviewed on the atmosphere as a phenomenon [29]- [31] shows that the atmosphere is complex and cannot create a socially inclusive place alone. Participation, such as light walks with lighting designers and architects, [32]- [35] can help make a foundation for more sociable sustainable places and to find atmospheres that could change the place.…”

Light formed through urban morphology and different organism groups: First findings from a systematic review.

“…Several studies include Kevin Lynch's five elements: paths, edges, districts, nodes, and landmarks, as a valuable approach to illuminating key urban features [1,26], constructing a visual representation of the city after dark [11]. Decreasing contrast ratios enhances the readability of architectural characteristics [26,28]; however, visual coherence between day-and night-time appearances of structures is diminished [29], and spatial order among architectural layers is blurred [11]. Variations in brightness-contrast levels can create either a visual enclosure or openness in the urban context.…”

“…High luminance levels that emerge through specular properties of surfaces lead to decreased uniformity and discomfort glare [35]. Lowering luminance levels also supports improved visibility of the surroundings in connection with diminished reflections from glossy surfaces, such as glass panels [28]. Besides visibility issues, reflections from illuminated surface materials can pose an ecological risk due to altered skyglow [11].…”

“…Balancing the ratios through the means of using vertical objects, such as trees, can support peripheral vision by acting as reflectors [27,32]. However, lower light levels are perceived as insufficient when individuals enter a darker area from brighter environments [28]. Adaptation can be supported; decreasing illuminance levels in immediate adjacent areas don't need to worsen the object visibility except at very low levels, e.g., 20% of the surroundings at ground level [51].…”

Co-designing safe and sustainable darkness for northern urban places

“…Current research and practical applications of lighting design and intelligent lighting technologies such as presence sensitive lighting [8] seek methods to adapt lighting to the environmental conditions and needs of the users, also considering the requirements for different traffic forms. These include, for example, creating balance between brightness levels and reducing contrasts [9]. The dark adaptation process of the human eye can also be taken as one of the design criteria [10][11].…”